“Are you from the police?”
“Yes,” I answered, surprised. I hadn’t realized her secretary was that efficient.
“I’m Dr. Hillstrom.” She reached over to a counter behind her and picked up a clipboard. “Could I have your name? State law requires I note everyone attending an autopsy.”‹ c auind/p›
“Joe Gunther.”
“Rank?”
“Lieutenant.”
“Rutland Police Department.”
“No, Brattleboro.”
She stopped writing and looked up. “What?”
“Brattleboro.” She glanced at the clipboard and then back to me. “Are you on some kind of exchange program or something?”
There was a sound behind me. A nervous young man with a wispy, struggling mustache slid into the room.
“Who are you?” Hillstrom demanded.
“Sorry I’m late. I’m John Evans. I’m supposed to collect some stuff on the autopsy…” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a notebook. “A Mrs. Ricci?”
“Then you’re from Rutland.”
Evans nodded and repeated. “Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t find a parking space.”
Hillstrom stared at me. “Perhaps this gentleman took it.”
I let out a small sigh and smiled. “I think we’ve started out on the wrong foot.”
“If you leave right now, we haven’t started out at all.”
“I was hoping I could talk with you.”
“About what?”
“The autopsy on Kimberly Harris. It was a case you handled…”
“I remember it-three years ago. Did we have a meeting scheduled that I’ve forgotten or something? This doesn’t ring the slightest bell.”
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t; I drove into town unannounced. Your secretary mentioned you were here and your assistant wasn’t at the office, so I took a chance.”
Igor walked into the room with two shiny steel slats and stood by the table. Hillstrom nodded to him. “I’ll be right with you, Harry. A chance at what, Mr. Gunther? That we could have a little chat over a lukewarm corpse? I don’t just carve these people up like Thanksgiving turkeys.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she lifted her gloved hand to silence me. There was a moment of quiet in the room as she briefly closed her eyes. When she spoke again, eyes open, the edge was gone from her voice. “I apologize; that was short-tempered. I take it you are in a bit of a rush to have this conversation, is that right?”
Assuming that if Ski Mask didn’t sense some action on our part soon, he’d feel obliged to stimulate us once again, and perhaps as fatally as he had with Jamie Phillips, I was hard put to argue. “I’m afraid time is a little tight. I didn’t mean to be this much of a nuisance.”
“You’re not-so far. It’s been a long day.” She turned an icy gaze onto the young cop from Rutland. “Filled with delays.”
“I’m sorry,” he said for the third time. She took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s start over. I’m Hillstrom; this is Evans, Gunther, and this is Harry Bergen. Let’s all hope I’m about to open up Mrs. Emma Ricci, sixty-three, the victim of a pedestrian-auto mishap having occurred in Rutland at 6:30 P.M. yesterday. Is that right, Mr. Evans? What’s your rank, by the way?”
“Corporal, ma’am.”
“All right, Corporal; now, you’re here for a blood sample, some photographs, and cause of death, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“ ‘Doctor’ will do fine. Good. Well then, as I determine potential causes of death-and there will be several judging from her appearance-I’ll let you know and you can take your photos. Harry will be doing some of that himself for our files. Lieutenant Gunther, I’ll be happy to talk with you after this is over. If you’d like to attend, be my guest. Have either one of you attended an autopsy before?”
“No ma’am-Doctor.”
I nodded. We didn’t have to do it often, and when we did, it was usually a case just like this one, involving a car.
“Well, if you get dizzy or worse, let us know so we can help you out. There’s nothing disgraceful about having normal human reactions to all this. Ready, everyone?”
We both nodded like schoolchildren and watched her and Harry Bergen get to work. Harry had the gentle touch of a caring mother-more than Dr. Hillstrom-smoothing Mrs. Ricci’s hair and occasionally resting his hand on her lightly as if to lend some little comfort. I felt that if any of Mrs. Ricci’s relatives had been here, their horror might have been blunted by his touch.
I had stood over quite a few dead bodies in my time, considering it covered both the Korean War and some thirty years as a cop. Most of them had been in context, from shell holes and blasted trees to twisted auto wrecks and smashed living rooms. Autopsies were different. The bodies were stripped, both of clothes and environment. They were laid out, cold, white, and flat on their backs, and they were dissected, just like frogs in a classroom. In many ways, an autopsy for me was the careful disassembling of a complex machine, piece by piece. I will admit, though, that I kept this side of me private. People tended to get twitchy around other people who enjoy autopsies.
Hillstrom and Bergen struggled to roll Mrs. Ricci onto her side so they could fit the two slats beneath her. That done, she lay somewhat suspended above the surface of the table, allowing a gentle stream of water to course under her, carrying away whatever fluid she might give up.
She was an enormous woman, gray-haired, lightly mustached, with heavy, unpleasant features. She reminded me of those discontented travelers I’d seen on buses or trains, their sleeping faces reflecting all the inert unhappiness of their lives. I also noticed, for no reason whatever, that she had incredibly unattractive toenails, yellow and gnarled in contrast to her pasty-white rubberlike skin.
Hillstrom picked up a scalpel and quickly made a long curved incision from shoulder to shoulder. She then intersected the slit just below the throat and cut a cat cklstraight line between the breasts down to the groin, creating a slightly rounded T.
“Were you the officer at the scene, Corporal?” Hillstrom asked without looking up.
Evans, his eyes glued to the scalpel, swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Could you give us the circumstances?” She buried her hand into the cut near the breast and pulled the thick outer layer of skin away from the body, cutting the few small pieces of tissue that still connected the two as she went and revealing the lungs underneath. The large flap in her hand consisted of two to three solid inches of bright yellow, glistening fat. A cloying, nauseous odor filled the room.
I could hear Evans’s breath coming in short and rapid gulps. “She was, ah, crossing the street… legally. You know, a crosswalk. Car should have stopped…”
“Why don’t you have a seat? No point standing around getting sore feet.”
“Okay.” Evans gratefully took a seat and leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees, the perfect image of studied casualness.
“You might also want to get your camera gear ready.” She motioned to Harry, who picked up Evans’s camera bag and placed it on the floor between his feet. Evans bent further forward to unzip it and rummaged among its contents.
“Was the driver intoxicated?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His voice was distinctly clearer. “She became hysterical at the time of the accident, so we haven’t been able to question her yet.”
Having folded both breasts back under the body’s arms, Hillstrom started examining and removing the organs, as carefully as she might have unpacked a duffel bag filled with china. The odor was absorbed by the ventilating system.
“You might want a shot of this.” Evans, steady once more, slowly approached the table, camera in hand.
“She’s suffered a punctured aorta, in itself enough to cause death, although possibly not the primary cause here; and right behind you can see where her spine is broken. I can get you a clearer view of that later.” Hillstrom placed her pale hand behind the aorta to give the picture more contrast. Evans focused and shot.
“You might want to add, by the way, that so far we also have a punctured lung, several broken ribs, a ripped diaphragm, and an entire pelvic area that looks shattered beyond belief. Also a perforated bowel. Did she go under the car, do you know?”